Bread

I agree.

Poetry

is like bread

and for everyone.

But which bread?

From where?

The boiled bagel?

Soot black pumpernickel?

Salt top ciabatta or

faccia vecchia

with anchovies and

hard cheese?

Pan dulce be it

concha o empanada?

The deservedly smug baguette,

maybe an airy croissant or

eggy brioche doing its bit

and infiltrating the banal

hotdog and hamburger bun?

How about a nice slice

of sourdough made from

tenacity and time?

Surely not the clay-like

white bread from store,

straight from the plates

of grade school PBJs,

whole milk, side of nostalgia.

Naan is king but paratha

gives stiff, flakey, competition.

If I forget thee, focaccia,

forgive me. Hardtack

is slow going, rough on the tooth,

but offers more in return

than injera depending,

as this all does,

on who you ask.

The Doctors

Today brings an automatic poem inspired by reading some surrealists and feeling too blah to really blog, yet compelled to share anyway. The TLDR version: I feel old today.

My heart is beating lately

like I did something more than just sit up

after a nap. The tea I’m drinking

changes the way I feel,

my mouth is coated, my heart

attuned to the dose of too much:

food and drink and tea. Sleep

rare compared to a short walk

and then more food and drink and tea.

One doctor says to visit more, demands

we meet to discuss my blood.

Another doctor warned that

the American diet would do me in,

complimented my mostly vegetarian

ways, salmon notwithstanding,

and that hardly means I’m off the cheese

though every bite feels like sin

and pales against what I downplayed

to doctor number two: the time it takes

to drain seven hundred and fifty milliliters.

Doctor number three cut a mole

from my shoulder, said not a word

more than hello, all scalpel and out

the door to excise another growth.

I appreciated the taciturn quickness.

Doctor number four gave me meds

after a dog took a bit of my leg,

a bite through denim

left a gash, bruise, and set the dominos

falling, falling. My summer

was antibiotics and rash, stomach

cramps and not quite myself,

 thoughts given to better days never

had of muscles and taut and

tree logs split.

Doctor the fifth felt my back

buttocks, leg. More meds—I

couldn’t name them, only

know they did not agree.

I dread doctor six, the devil’s number.

I see him in weeks where my

days are breathing and hearing

my body sing a song worse than

scratched vinyl aching to be.

South of No North: Cross-eyed and Rivalrous

When I moved to the north side in 1993, my south side friends asked only one question: Where will you park? Well, that and they asked me about my sexual persuasion, assuming anyone north of Cermak was “funny.”

When I told my north side friends and acquaintances where I was from, one offered this joke: What’s the difference between yogurt and the south side? Yogurt has active cultures.

When I moved to Rogers Park, the far north side of Chicago, one Lincoln Park buddy referred to my area as “the suburbs.” Another pal residing in Lakeview asked if he’d need a passport to visit me.

This week, one pal made a good-natured joke about the south side not having Wi-Fi. This from a guy who lives in Evanston and likely thinks it’s Chicago.

I have not told another friend about my move because I dread the comments. When I told yet another friend that I was moving closer to where they live, they asked, “Why?” Same question from family members and friends whose lexicons apparently lack the word congratulations.

My brother told me, within one minute of hearing my new address, where to find good pizza. Love that.

Reading a short story from a Sox fan friend, they put in a dig at the Cubs that would be adorable if I gave a fuck. The rivalry remains, I guess, but I’ve been a north sider long enough to know that Cubs fans never think of the team that plays on whatever they call that ballpark on 35th these days. Cubs fans can’t get it up to care enough about the Sox to talk shit.

I’m not stunned by any of this. If anything, the division is largely a product of harmless ribbing between parts of the city. But behind these seemingly begin sentiments one finds a history of segregation, uneven economic investment, and grudges born of this bitter fruit.

Laugh because otherwise you’d cry.

South of No North: Pizza and Grass

It’s quiet. My dog is sleeping in a sun spot on the floor by the glass door to the rear of this townhome we’ve bought (sorta). (Townhome sounds strange to me— duplex? Triplex (if one counts the basement)?)

In an hour, my stepfather will arrive wth tools. He’s a handyman in every sense of the word. Today’s primary goal is hanging pictures, which I might handle solo were my back and hip and leg not still plagued by aches. I have unpacked only a fraction of the books. Taking it slow.

Within a minute of sharing my new address, my brother had pizza recommendations. Friends have offered alternatives. Even the physical therapist named a choice spot for a slice while loosening my hip. South siders know their pizza.

My physical therapist went to the same high school I graduated from years before he was born. He shares my first name. He knew my favorite teacher, the guy who made me realize I love reading.

I read my wife a poem today by Douglas Dunn. A love poem to his wife, who, if I have my Dunn chronology straight, would die and inspire his book Elegies. I then told her that Terry Street was a favorite book, this poem always staying with me because of the “I wish him grass” line. She understands. We had trees and the lake where we were. We have grass here.

Yesterday the dog ran on the grass so quickly it would’ve been easy to think he is a young pup. He lived not far from here before he lived with us. Does my dog, now returned south after a decade north, feel the way I do? Does he feel like he’s home again? Does he run because he feels young and then stops because he feels old?

I have papers to grade already. And a manuscript I agreed to review. And people sending me things. And letters from the people who hold our mortgage, the bill for the chest X-ray. (My wife decided that I cough too much, smoked too much in my wayward days.) None of it feels as burdensome as it should. At least not right now. It will soon. But now I’m having tea and my dog is sleeping and the hour is quiet before I work. Now is not forever.

South of No North: This Fragile Body

The meds are keeping me sober

doped morning haze notwithstanding.

After the third day, muscle relaxers

wane, I’m not feeling especially high

only tired and sore from sleep,

sleep I can barely get with my back

and leg and hip onto some new

place I don’t know, a land as strange

as whatever terrain was strange

to the men in elaborate dress

eager to be too much themselves.

I am sober and drinking a fifth

cup of black tea and will likely

wake before dawn and think of

where we are, closer to where

I was when I was younger, years

behind where I should be.

2

Not drinking because of the pain meds. I joked that death from booze and muscle relaxers would be something close to how Marilyn Monroe died. Worse company?

(I know that Monroe was taking barbiturates, which I don’t think are the same as muscle relaxers, but the joke remains because I like it. I’m not really suicidal, by the way. No more than anyone else, I suppose. I just like dark jokes. They offer simple, cheap comfort. And comfort is comfort is comfort.)

I unpacked more books today and found a place for each bookcase. The study, as we’re calling the second bedroom, will hold most of the poetry and the books by my heroes (Joyce, Bulgakov, Beckett, O’Brien, Winterson, Woolf, Thomas, Quin) as well as the Latin American library I built over five years of reading poetry and novels from that region. The main floor is a hodge-podge of texts with a shelf dedicated to James Kelman because he deserves it. The rest will reside in the basement. I’ve accidentally made a sort of upstairs-downstairs ranking, but I do love all the books as much, I suppose, as wealthy aristocratic pricks loved their servants.

3

One week with a garage and already I’m annoyed when I have to find and pay for parking. This is the lure of the area—plenty of places to leave your car for free.

Next weekend, I’m meeting friends who don’t know that I’ve left the north side. They invited me to a spot in Rogers Park where we often meet. So I will have an excuse to venture back to the now former stomping grounds. I sincerely hope I get these invitations regularly, as I have this idea that I’ll make a monthly pilgrimage to some of my cherished haunts. But I am sure that the invites will dwindle in synch with my motivation. Resolutions have a way of breaking.

4

“Resolve is never stronger than in the morning after the night when it was never weaker” – Johnny, as played by David Thewlis, Naked, 1993, directed by Mike Leigh.

5

I can’t imagine myself as a pill popper. I hate taking these pain killers. I’d sooner open a bottle. So much easier. Not really, but there’s more in a glass of scotch to savor.

I like the smell of the grass in the morning when I’m walking the dog. Maybe it’s my imagination. There’s no smell, really. Just a small expanse of green that strikes because it’s more than I am used to. I could never be the guy who mows a lawn. The HOA expense is worth it if I never have to think about yard work. Gardening. Mulch. I’m just not that guy. Not good with my hands. Can barely swing a hammer. I wish I was that guy, but that’s not in the cards. Although… now that I am a (sorta) homeowner, perhaps it is time to be that guy. Or a version of that guy. Late bloom into something close to a functional “man.”

I Googled how to unclog a sink once. And then took pipes apart and snaked a drain and all that. The results were minimal—the landlady still had to call a handyman. I watched him address the clog. He took so many things apart and used tools I wouldn’t begin to know how to handle.

There’s forever a part of me that feels like that guy is doing something of value whereas I make pretend and teach young people about the products of other people who make pretend.

6

This morning I slept in for the first time in weeks. I usually rise by five or six even on weekends. Lately, leg and back pain have gotten me up closer to four. But the pain is (saints be praised) subsiding as I’ve been stretching and taking it easier (read: not lifting and moving everything in sight for hours on end). I descended the stairs from my bedroom to the main floor because I now have stairs and floors, plural. I made tea in my kitchen and then some eggs and potatoes for me and my sleeping wife. Woke her with breakfast and then we walked the dog and went to the hardware store because there is a never-ending need for more stuff around the new place. Chairs for the back area, apparently, though we found none. Settled for hangers and grout cleaner.

Yesterday I flattened thirty boxes. Maybe another twenty to unpack still, but it’s Labor Day so I don’t feel compelled to do much labor. We’re not barbequing or doing anything much to celebrate the holiday aside from enjoying the new space. Later, I’ll cook some fish and veggies in an attempt to get back to healthy living, which this last month has robbed me of. The last weigh-in saw three pounds added to my frame, all of which I can see. I fear I’ll become a doughy suburban version of myself if I don’t maintain vigilance. Once the hip/leg/back heals, I’ll join the gym down the street and restart the workouts. Maybe in a year I’ll be where I want to be: leaner, stronger, smarter, less spending money in my pocket but the little money I have invested in something more than a night out. And someday I can sell this place and (hopefully) cash in and use those proceeds to fund a true bender, one I’ll not return from. A true going out with a bang and a barbaric yawp to end the days. Likely the most realistic retirement plan I can fathom.

South of No North, Part Two: The Soft Lunacy at Ten

1

Anyone who knows me may know that I wrote a book called The Soft Lunacy primarily concerned with the act of book collecting. Even if you haven’t dragged your eyes across those pages, you may know that I suffer from an affliction called bibliophilia. This has caused the eighty posing as sixty boxes of books mentioned in the previous edition of this essay. Having now moved to the new place in the south side of Chicago, I can report that my addiction to books (buying and collecting more than actually reading them) has injured both me and taxed the muscles of the movers unlucky enough to land the gig.

I spent a month packing everything my wife and I have gathered over a decade at our past residence, much of it schlepped through a few other apartments before we settled in our Rogers Park dwelling. Suffice it to state that this was a big fucking job. My back hurt more than once, aggravation of an old injury. I stretched, I popped Advil, I went back to work. The week before the move, after we closed on the new home, I drove back-n-forth north-n-south hauling everything I could to make the eventual big move easier. And yet, the movers filled the truck without space for bicycles and lamps and the wonderful paintings my wife has acquired over the years. Return trips to the old abode were many, but it’s all finally here.

The last drive back, I noticed that my leg was tingling. Then numb. And yet, an ache in there somehow. Numb and pained at once. Since then, the feeling has progressed to constant discomfort and low-grade agony. I got on some muscle relaxers and started physical therapy. I’m a ways away from being the guy at the gym lifting and sweating and extending his life.

I wrote something in The Soft Lunacy (I can’t recall the exact wording, and I won’t look it up) about someday dying under a pile of books, an avalanche of tomes precariously triple stacked on creaking shelves. In that sense, this recent book related injury is confirmation that my demise will be of my own making. Suicide by book collecting.

2

Unpacking is slow. I’ve filled two standard and one extra tall bookcase, which feels like a lot. A dop in the proverbial bucket. Today, I lined the shelves of the basement bar with books. Normally, this space would hold glassware and various items associated with finer public houses. But in my basement, there are books. There will be books in every room. One day, that is. One day when I have no more boxes cluttering up the space between where I am and where I wish to be: in my organized, quiet home library. See me there—a scotch at my side reading Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy and nowhere near finishing it. When I get there—when all is unpacked and properly placed and the packing supplies are tossed and the boxes donated and the dog is finally acquainted with the new smells—I might actually be content. What a thought.

3

The upside of all of this? I have not bought a book in over a month. Those little free libraries? I pass them by without a glance.

4

One of the movers made a joke: “Next time… electronic books.”

You’d have to hear him say this in his Russian accent to get the full effect.

I laughed and apologized.

I can’t do eBooks. Or audio books. I can only fuck with the text, the tome, the book, the onanistic object of adoration and obsession. The tangible, tactile thing that will surely ruin my body as I age along with the ever-expanding library. I’m doomed. Doomed.

South of No North, Part One: Fuck Capitalism

1

I begin this writing with the declaration that, as of yesterday, I am a “property owner.” Scare quotes are appropriate as I am considered one who now owns versus rents though I own no property. Or it doesn't feel like I do. I have a mortgage. I am in further debt today than I was yesterday. In fact, I have never been this deep in debt. Even when I went back to college and amassed a fuck load of debt, I was still not anywhere near as in debt as I am at this moment.

David Graeber wrote a famous book about the history of debt. I’ve had it on my shelf to read for years, but I fear I will be depressed by page four.

David Graeber’s book is one of thousands I packed in the last two weeks. Currently, I have about sixty boxes of books waiting to be moved. This sounds like a lot to some people, but know that the number should be closer to eighty. I arrive at sixty because I foolishly packed large boxes with books, boxes that are not meant for books, boxes that are too heavy for a normal human to lift. I pray the movers I hired possess preternatural strength.

In the fortnight since I started packing, my back has twice rebelled. Once when I tested the weight of one of the large boxes of books and again as I tied my shoes. I stretch each morning and find long walks and even a few jogs restorative, but I know that the progress I’ve made toward health and physical strength has been compromised simply because I cannot part with most of the, I dunno, six thousand books I’ve accumulated.

I have this idea that I will both organize and count my books as I unpack them. Instead of the ramshackle system that has served me well enough in the decade I’ve lived in my apartment, I will have the library sorted by author, subject, maybe geography? The prospect excites me, but I know there’s no order coming. And I know that I’ll grow the library once I’m in the new digs, because that is what I do. If I move again, which would not be for (hopefully) another decade, who knows the number of books that’ll need packing?

Maybe, in this imagined future, I will sell the bulk of the library and keep only the essential volumes, a final library before I check out. Yeah, right.

Thinking of a future move while approaching the present one (in one week, dear lord) is silly. Why think that far ahead? Who knows what the fuck will happen? My life may be in any number of shapes, so why speculate? Worry about today. And next week. Fucking hell… one week and the movers will be here, cursing me.

I plan to pad the moving bill with a healthy gratuity. And I’m expecting the bill will exceed the quote, as I told the movers to expect a two-bedroom apartment. I made no mention of the number of books in this domicile, but hey, they’re pros, right? That stated, the sixty boxes should take a bit of time to haul. And then there’s the distance between residences, the real subject of this essay (one of them, at least). Here goes.

2

I am moving from the far-north Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park to a far-south one close to where I grew up. This both excites and scares me. What if, after all this time, I am too much a north sider to adjust to the south? What if all the things I loved about the north side when I moved here in 1993 are absent in the south side?

These were my first thoughts, but I beat them back with reminders that 1. I rarely enjoy the things I used to enjoy about where I live, 2. I spend most nights at home, 3. I’ve made my home the best place for me in the city, 4. it has all my books and art and my couch and bed and cheap booze and a kitchen with better food than a lot of the paces I might drop a buck, 5. there are cafés and bars and eateries and distractions aplenty in other parts of the city, 6. I still have friends in the south side I would love to see more of, 7. most of my family will be closer, 8. I will own (not really) rather than rest and that allows me to finally have a pile of bricks with which to do more or less as I please.

There are further rationalizations and assurances, but eight seems like a nice number.

I’ll miss a few things. The lake. I can walk there in five minutes. That’s a nice perk of Rogers Park. I’ll miss the Red Lion Pub, which I only visit once or twice a year, but in theory could frequent more often. I retain nostalgia for the place, as it was my favorite bar for a long time, well before the remodeling. I see it as a physical representation of the kid who came to the north side eager for literary talk and an elevated experience that I, because I was a callow prick, didn’t find where I was. That stated… there are plenty of fake pubs where I’m going.

We all do this, right? Let nostalgia color our perception. Assign outsized value to places? Imbue the mundane with meaning. We do this in ways that seem ridiculous to others, perhaps, but I don’t think I’m alone, and I know that however much I may rhapsodize about bars or bookstores of past, were these places around today I may rarely if ever bother making a trip there. Chicago of 2026 is unlike Chicago of 1993, to me at least. My treasured landmarks are redone as places that young people love and will someday miss when they too go the way of the dodo. So it goes.

[Update from the future—I had to go back to the old apartment and grab a few items that the movers couldn’t get in the truck. Then I drove from Rogers Park to the university where I work in the South Loop. I had time to kill and thought I might take the long way and see some landmarks of the north side, a sort of goodbye to whatever is up there that retains some value in my wayward head. Midway through the commute, dealing with asshole drivers and aching to be done with the drive, I realized that nostalgia is treacly syrup and, when possible, best left unswilled.]

3

The experience of buying property is as dispiriting as expected. Forget that my wife and I have looked at more condos than I can recall over the last three years, few of them worth considering, two of them we dithered over, one we took a shot at before finally landing our big fish. Three years, give or take a few months in each when we decided that looking at uninspiring condos, and truly gorgeous places reserved for the highest paid doctors and runners of Ponzi schemes, was depressing. On more than one occasion I declared home ownership out of reach and likely overrated. Why not rent forever? I have no children to leave my home to. Maybe it’s right to exit this world the way I entered it: naked, screaming, with zero possessions.

But then the apartment would frustrate me. Drafty in winter, costly to cool in summer, creaky floors, a sink prone to clogs, faucet fixtures refusing stasis, poor light, a few electrical issues and a moment or two I’d do well not describing or remembering, thank you very much. That stated, the place is also lovely. Spacious. More than capable of housing books and paintings and other life-affirming artifacts of time well spent. And the rent has been consistently reasonable. My landlady, God bless her, apologized once for having to raise my monthly payment by fifty dollars. In short: were I a single man, like the guy who lives on the top floor of the building, this would be a perfect bachelor pad. Affordable, owned by an accommodating woman (who also owns the local tavern), and while on the wrong side of “vintage,” a charming and mostly comfortable space.

Then again, when my landlady babysits her grandkids, and I hear not the pitter-patter but rolling thunder of little feet above me, I very much want to sign my life away and double my monthly nut.

I thought searching for the ideal home was bad, but once we found ours, the real business of acquiring property hit us. Those who have endured this process even once (and I can’t believe anyone would go through this again) know what I speak of. Banks and lenders and lawyers and inspectors and title companies all needing their pounds of flesh, not to mention the city (Chicago takes a larger bite than most). I’m sure it’s more or less on the up and up, but fuck me if it all doesn’t render a person numb. I was stressed and worried about things until yesterday when we closed and I was too exhausted to care about what I was signing. Now I just feel even and content. It’s done. The many papers are signed and the place is ours. The move it still a week away, but I’m done feeling anything. Which is a relief?

4

Speaking of relief, the month of gathering financials, packing, and simmering stress has sent me to the bottle. One a week, on average. Not a level so bad I worry, but that much intake at my age does have its effects, the worst being in the morning. I don’t experience hangovers so much as poor sleep, a direct result of boozing. Not to the mention a puffy face and fuzzy head.

But then, a quick stretch of the muscles, a jog in the neighborhood, a snack, a shower, and I’m right as fucking rain. Which is when the FEAR returns. I make it to dinner time before breaking my morning vow to abstain. A beer, a coupla whiskies, some cheap relief from the swelling anxieties, a precious reprieve. Begin again tomorrow.

I had this idea that I could make the last month in RP a proper spree and then put the plug in the jug for a bit. Might still, but I’m sure a few lovely pals will help christen my new domain. Not to mention I hear no end of praise for a few of the microbreweries in the vicinity of my digs. Shall I amend the vow so that my sobriety is reserved for the weekdays? Ideally, and really I’m not worried. I don’t feel any crushing dependency, don’t have any shaky hands or DTs when I give it a rest. I only mention this bout of boozing to further illustrate the ways acquiring property can send one around the bend and into the bender.

4

Anyone who stumbles on these ramblings in search of the promised socialist screed has likely fucked off by now. We’re 1,800 words deep and not a Marxist moment to be had. Let’s amend that.

All property is theft, to be sure. I buy that in my bones. Sadly, I have also bought a lot of things that I don’t, in theory, think should be for sale. Specifically: health care, education, healthy food, and, now, property. It’s enough to make a person say, “Fuck you, capitalism.”

“Fuck you, capitalism” has been a recurring cry lately. The securing of a loan and gathering of downpayment monies, not to mention the assessing of finances and budgeting and planning that has been omnipresent well outside the scope of this recent purchase, has me drifting toward Marxist ideas of the sin of property. Not that my ideas align with pure Marxism so much as what reductively is called “Marxist” by those who’ve never picked up Das Kapital.

While I worry that the purest of commies who might call for the dissolving of all private property don’t have perfect plans in place for how exactly that would work, and the state seems pretty bad at managing a lot of things, the government can’t do much worse than the private sector. Were I to adopt an ideology, it would be something close to socialist, but I am loath to ever throw my hat into any one ring. But damn if the DSA isn’t singing a song close to my heart. Today, after signing all those docs and doing all that math, I am singing along at full volume.

I was told that once I bought a place of my own and built equity and saw property values rise I would abandon any pretense of socialism. I was told that a young person could afford to be a liberal and that a wise person swings right when they figure out that the world is the world. Hogwash. I’m a bigger, dirtier leftie now than ever. Because capitalism is so dirty I could never compete. Unfettered and deregulated, the beast is too far off the chain. The agencies have ceded much of their oversight—marvel at the predatory price-gouging and (to borrow a phrase from Cory Doctorow) enshittification. Growth at all costs, even if it costs more. Higher prices for lousier products. Corners cut, earth scorched, slaves enslaved, consumers left feeling empty, looking for the next thing. The void is the end. Let’s jump.

Maybe when I move next week, when I have my stuff freshly arranged, when I spend that first night in my old bed in a new space, I’ll feel a rush of joy and know that I am happy and deep in the capitalist system with a place of my own worth all the cost and concern. Maybe I’ll swear allegiance to the free market. My inner Milton Friedman will emerge and I will see all that is right and good under American skies.

But at the moment, that seems impossible.

AI Again. Or: The Song Remains Frustratingly the Same

Yesterday I attended a conference at the school where I work, a beginning of the semester gathering of faculty and administrators with a pretty good taco bar. Past conferences have run the gamut of fine-to-good, but I rather enjoyed my time at this mandatory meeting. This from a guy who once said his career ambition was to never have to go to meetings.

The highlight of the day, sorta, was a panel on artificial intelligence, a topic that one might have thought would be somewhat settled in the minds of academics who, for all their talk of critical inquiry and ongoing interrogations of staid ideas, can be loyal to theories and practices learned in years past. This ongoing conversation about AI could be seen as my collogues being exceptionally willing to revisit topics in need of revisiting. Or so I’d hoped before the chat.

While the panelists acquitted themselves admirably, I did have a beef with the way the chat re-trod the same talking points I’ve heard for, oh, two years or so. In a ridiculously futile effort to put these dull points to bed, allow me to address the following:

AI, I’m told again and again, is a tool; it only matters how one uses a tool. A hammer can build or destroy. Do we blame the hammer or the person holding it?

I will not do better than Frank Elavsky, so read his blog to find the best rebuttal to this rather facile take. But if AI has robbed you of the attention required to read two pieces of writing, here’s a direct response to the hammer analogy:

Even a hammer, made of wood and iron, requires trees to be cut down and earth to be mined up. A simple hammer requires laws to be written about fair treatment of workers in multiple industries, sustainability of various biological and geological environments, and regulation about the sale and use of the hammer. “It matters how you use it,” in regards to artificial intelligence ignores the reality that it also matters how AI is made, how AI is disseminated, the waste AI produces, the damage AI causes to economies and environments, and the overall impact that AI has on human life and culture.

A person on the panel used another example: train cars once being made to look like horses and carriages because people were afraid of the new technology, as people usually are. I thought immediately of not only Elvasky’s points but also Neil Postman’s argument that technology is never additive; it is ecological. The person who uses the example of the train implies that people were silly to worry about trains. Silly primitive people with their fears of tech! This stance also implies that the train did nothing to alter the landscape, commerce, industry, family, community, and our relationship with time and space. Perhaps not all these changes were bad—many could be labeled “good”—but that’s less the point. Tech has power. The world after the train was not the world as it was plus the train. It was a different world. The same can be said for the world after the printing press, the automobile, the airplane, the calculator (more on that in a second), the internet, and artificial intelligence. Postman argued that technology is so powerful in the way it remakes society that the responsible person will ask “what will this undo?” as opposed to only wondering “what will this do?”

The next example in favor of AI was, of course, the calculator as a now universally embraced technology and the audacity people once had while suggesting it would ruin students’ ability to do math. While the panelist was wise enough to admit that maybe comparing the calculator to AI is a bit of a false equivalency, they nevertheless doubled down on what is easily the most played note in the AI advocate’s symphony. Is it even worthwhile to address this? Don’t we know that 1. comparing the calculator to AI is the same as comparing a slingshot to a howitzer, and that 2. the calculator did have an effect? That we now allow calculators into classrooms—along with laptops, tablets, phones, and other questionable gadgets—hardly invalidates the point that the calculator changed things. Good or bad is, again, not exactly the point, as the person who employs this lazy comparison essentially states, “We once freaked out about one tech and now we don’t, so we’re therefore silly to freak out about this new tech” while ignoring the ways the old tech did, and the new tech will, alter the classroom, the student, the teacher, and our collective abilities.

(Right about now is when the average tech advocate calls me a luddite, sometimes out loud, sometimes with their eyes. So go ahead and say it.

Did that feel good? Okay. Happy for you. Let’s move on.)

The last point of the panel (spoken aloud in front of a room full of academics, no less) bothered me most. It bothers me most because the other two points, poor as I find them, at least spring from a line of thinking I can understand, even if they offer quick answers that ignore bigger ideas. The last point that bothers me more is: AI is inevitable and students need to learn it, therefore it is our ethical responsibly to teach it to them, to teach them how to use it responsibly (after all, it’s “just a tool.”).

There are actually two points in here crammed together, so let’s unpack them.

First: AI is not inevitable. STOP FUCKING SAYING THAT IT IS, please. Or, if you’re going to swallow this insidious talking point spewed from the bilious mouths of the tech CEOs who stand to make another mint off this technology at the expense of the world they cannot connect with, at least modify the bullshit by stating: Because our government is feckless, our president is corrupt, Silicon Valley operates like a Ponzi scheme, capitalism is rapacious, our citizens are beaten down, and our young people are set up to fail, AI is inevitable. Sam Altman and his ilk need us to believe that AI is inevitable the way rain is inevitable. Postman comes to mind, yet again; he argued that tech is soon seen as organic so much so that one cannot imagine a world without it the way one cannot imagine a world with trees and water. But AI is not organic, god-given, or inevitable. It is manufactured and foisted upon us, beta tested on the most vulnerable so that the most sheltered and wealthy can further isolate themselves and build private compounds on Kauai or jerk off to fantasies about colonizing Mars.

The second point that really irks me in the above-referenced statement is that we need to teach young people to use AI because not doing so would be unethical.

Okay, I get it—we lost. We who believe that college should be about education, growth, knowledge, fostering life-long inquiry and personal edification… we’re small in comparison to the folks who see college as job training. The goal post was moved from diploma to BA (MA?) long ago, and college is not what it might have once been, which is why jokes about majoring in something as silly and impractical as English have yet to exhaust themselves. But for fuck’s sake, we’ve capitulated to the college degree = career prerequisite crowd. Must we also capitulate to the AI evangelists?

Forget for a second that students are skilled at using AI already. Forget that the university need not solely be thought of in terms of return on investment. Forget all that shit. Oh wait—you may already have forgotten that if you’ve argued that AI is inevitable and it is therefore our ethical responsibility to teach young people to use it so they can be competitive on the job market. Because nothing says “I’m completive and skilled” like exporting your skills to a machine against which you cannot compete.

(Here is where people tend to bring up the point that there is much good AI can do, specifically regarding finding cures for diseases and so forth. This is when I have to remind those individuals that I am speaking against generative AI, not predictive AI. I’m all for using the robots to cure cancer. Got that? Okay then.

Here is also a good place for me to state that AI has a place in some classrooms where some disciplines are taught. I am not saying that it has no place in higher education, but in the humanities… nah.)

So are we good? I hope so. I mean, I know nothing I wrote above will stop the tide of AI (although I maintain some optimism that the tide is turning, as a lot of people seem to be souring on AI and its ghoulish and awkward hucksters), but let me dream for a second that these talking points are at last dispensed with, as I am fine (not really, but whatever) with a person embracing AI if they are at least doing so sans the flimsy shelter of fallacious arguments.

UPDATE.

I heard it again. “AI is just a tool.” Fucking hell, I couldn’t even get a day behind me before someone trotted that line out. I guess this shit is inevitable. Oh well, enjoy the robot-generated cat videos. I’m off to bed with a drink.

ADDENDUM:

Will AI innovate whisky production in Scotland? I doubt it, but maybe there is some way this tech can make this highest of human creations even better. That might be the thing to finally get me on the side of the tech bros. Look for me at the next Stanford Conference.